Fear No Evil

Young high school misfit discovers he is the antichrist and gets revenge on his cruel classmates while fighting off two arch angels in human form. Good premise is well plotted, but some over the top acting, laughable special effects, and a disappointing finale ruin it. Good soundtrack though. Rated R; Graphic Nudity, Adult Themes, Violence, and Profanity.

I can't believe I've never heard of this before. Got it at the comic book show today. I'm remind of a better satanic school kid movie called 'Evilspeak'. Get that one if you can, but if you wind up with 'Fear no Evil' you will be entertained and surprised. During a showing of a Passion Play the crowd begins to bleed. Yes, there is quite a bit of religious matter in this movie. Angels in human form versus the devil. That is not all though. There are high school teens up to their 80's activities (having sex). Also, naked boys for an odd scene with a violent kiss. This movie is more homoerotic than 'Jeepers Creepers 2'! In the final scene you can see the devil boy's genitals if you pay close attention. I don't know why!?! Then, there are light shows and I expected the beams to come out of the screen in 3-D! Punk soundtrack with the Rezillos, Sex Pistols, Ramones, and Talking Heads.

FEAR NO EVIL was the first movie directed by Frank LaLoggia, who was in his early 20s when he made it. This alone should be reason enough to overlook the film's many faults, certainly when you consider that the story is ambitious, to say the least. And because of this, I actually give props to the film because it's not the all-out disaster everyone says it is. For a first film, it's at times surprisingly good. But the story and direction are, nonetheless, extremely murky. Some scenes are dreadful, like the shot of the front of the house which shows the passage of time and we see the house getting more dilapidated by the second. When the scene ends, the house looks like a tornado hit it but when we see inside the house, everything looks fine. Huh?!?! Moments like these, plus the unknown cast, who at times look like they're acting in a high school theater production, don't help much to create a solid, focused production. The ending was good but you saw it coming a mile away.

I don't understand why this movie is so despised. It's probably due to the shower scene. Fan boys can't take moments like this, which are, oddly enough for a horror movie, too shocking for them. Oh the irony!

In the end, FEAR NO EVIL is an adequate first movie made in the early 1980s. Like I already said above, it's not the worst horror movie ever made like so many have claimed it to be (see PLEDGE NIGHT!). But the director's ambitions exceeded his inexperience and the film's low budget.

I remember a friend taping this for from a TV movie channel back when I was too young to watch these type of flicks (must have been at age 11). Anybody else of you who first saw it at that age, must know "Fear No Evil" tends to stick in your memory. In 2007 I managed to pick up the US Anchor Bay DVD edition and re-watch it. It will always remain very much a flawed affair all the same, but it's a guaranteed fun watch. You'll just have to be able to handle 80's horror cheese. A whole lot of it. "Fear No Evil" is a pretty ambitious movie (and the same goes for the story and the orchestrated score). Some tension, sometimes frightening, sometimes shocking but safe to say that most of the time it doesn't make a lick bit of sense. Unbelievable how many songs by 80's bands they managed to put on the soundtrack (great stuff like The Ramones, Talking Heads, Sex Pistols,...). So what do we have here? We've got the Devil incarnated, naked breasts (obviously), angels and demons at play, zombies, some weed-smoking, basket balls that crush & kill, (and for the ladies) we got an all-boys showering scene with all the dudes generously flapping around their ding-dongs (and some male/male kissing with almost deadly consequences). Not nuts enough yet? We also got a solid on-screen hint at female masturbation with a gun. More? How about immensely enjoyable make-up effects & some highly psychedelic, colorful animated effects... 80's Horror rocked, simple as that.

As far as horror movies go, this one is above average (definitely not warranting less than four). Yeah, there were some drawbacks. Some scenes were a bit drawn out and others were completely irrelevant. What was up with that homoerotic male shower? That was over the top and pretty much as gratuitous as most female shower scenes. Lucifer's character shows flashes, but never really seems inherently evil as you would think. It's clear that he knows who he is from the start, but the role is written as if he's going through the puberty of devilhood. If Julie/Gabriel had been required to be nude, I would have given this a 10. Sadly, her clothes stayed on. The gym teacher overacts with a hilarity of epic proportions.